Sunday 26 July 2015

The Wedding Fragrance

What will your wedding smell like? You've chosen the flowers and the venue, maybe even scented the church with a myriad of Jo Malone candles, but the most important decision is still to be made. What perfumes are you both going to choose for the big day? You're going to stand opposite each other for an hour, although if often feels considerably longer, so it would be a good start to the celebration if you liked each others' scent. There has recently been a boom in the fashion for speciality "wedding fragrances", but are we missing some true classics in the never ending quest for scented originality? 

Your choice must be something personal to you both, but which compliment each other. You don't want your first fight to be a battle of scents as you stand at the altar, so chose carefully. Also, remember that you're gong to be wearing it all day so, unless you're a fan of the eighties power-dressing perfume, think gentle. Sweet can be cloying, citrus can be astringent and oud ... well, unless farmyard mixed with fear is what you're going for then I would advise you to avoid it at all costs. There is nothing like nervousness to bring out the full "glory" of oud, or should that be "gory"?

On 10th July 2015 Maxine Gregory married James Barron, and I was very honoured to advise the bride on her wedding fragrance. James is a dear friend of mine but he is a citrus fiend, so I left him to his own devices! When I visited them before the wedding I had a good snoop through Maxine's current perfumes. Nestling amongst them was L'Aimant, and she instantly screamed at me not to judge her too harshly. Little did she know that L'Aimant is one of my favourite fragrances, even in its current form.

Her late mother, Bennie, worked in advertising and was always being asked, "Which is the Chanel No.5 copy?" We forget these days just how successful this fragrance was. So, with a family and personal history already attached to L'Aimant it seemed the natural choice. For her wedding day I gave her an engraved bottle of the current version to wear and also a fifties version as a keepsake. Bennie wasn't there in person, but she was definitely there in scent.

One final thought to finish with. If you decide to go for a "vintage" perfume for your big day then please test it on yourself before the wedding. Fragrances before 2000 contained lots of ingredients which are now banned for various reasons, and I wouldn't want you to have a blotchy neck. If you're unsure then put the perfume on a piece of lace and secrete it about your person. Whatever you choose to wear, have a wonderful day and remember, "With this fragrance I thee wed."

[Photographs by Khalile Siddiqui Photography]

4 comments:

  1. Great post! I got a perfume blended for me. Would be interesting to go back and see if it was still me 10 years on (probably not!)

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    1. You should try it ... See what memories come back. Sometimes it's things that you haven't thought about for years!

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  2. Woah! I feel fragrance is something that we tend to ignore in hurry. And I would say, you took one of the really important things as a topic. I will soon be marrying the love of my life at one of the prettiest wedding venues NYC and I am sure I would have forgotten this. Your post just saved me.

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    1. Hello Zerry, how did the wedding go? Best, Stephan

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